Focused ion beam direct deposition of gold

Focused ion beam direct deposition has been developed as a new technique for making patterned metal film directly on substrates. The 20 keV Au+ ion beam is focused, deflected, and finally decelerated to 30–200 eV between the objective lens and substrate. The decelerated beam is deposited on the substrate at room temperature. The beam diameter can be tuned between 0.5 and 8 μm and the beam current varies from 40 pA to 10 nA, corresponding to the beam diameter. Current density was about 20 mA/cm2, so that the deposition rate in the beam spot was estimated about 0.02 μm/s. The purity of gold film was measured with Auger electron spectroscopy and contents of carbon and oxygen, undesirable impurities, were below detection limits. The resistivity was constant at 3.7±0.1 μΩ cm for deposition over the ion energy range of 34–194 eV.